


Raven on Snow

by PoisonedPrada



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, Mirandy Bingo, Mirandy Week, Mirandy Year of Fun & Frolics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-05 16:57:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14623113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoisonedPrada/pseuds/PoisonedPrada
Summary: Miranda and Andrea against a backdrop of a fashion magazine. A look at the years that came after told through memories and what if's ....





	1. The Middle

“So many thoughts cross my mind,” I whisper so soft it’s almost inaudible  
but she hears me.  
“mmmhh,” she murmurs softly enough to not interrupt what ever is going to come next.  
“sometimes I wonder what if I drove very fast in an empty highway, what if I could end it all there, a blunder crash against the wall?”  
She sighs and her hand comes down upon my locks, it kneads into my hair raising a certain sort of warmth I hadn’t felt in a long time.  
“I love you,” she says suddenly. It’s not a whisper but it isn’t loud. It’s a statement released quietly into the day.  
The words hang awkwardly in the room, they feel out of place, just like I do. I don’t belong here, wrapped in her mahogany brown sheets, black hair splayed across the white of her barely covered skin. Her long manicured fingers still comb my hair. We contrast like a raven on snow, out of place.   
“You don’t have to love me,” she says this time quieter than before, this time there is a stillness in her voice, an embarrassment, a gravity.  
I do.  
I do love her, but I can’t say it yet. I don’t know I can ever say it. Never in a million years, in all the things I imagined of her did I see us here.  
“what are we doing?” I ask  
I feel her shift, she turns slightly, it forces me to move, to rest my head on the pillow and look at her.  
She smiles and I smile back.  
Big blue eyes sparkle in the starlight that fills the room. There is a frugality about her as she leans in and whispers, “you don’t have to say it back, now or ever but if you ever do it will change our lives,” before kissing me.  
When the kiss is over her hands continues threading my hair and I snuggle closer to her, putting my hand on the flat of her midsection.   
There is silence after that and I’m not sure if she stops caressing my hair or we just fall asleep.


	2. New Balenciaga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning after.

The morning is a rapid awakening.  
“We’re going to be late,” I whisper as she stretches and shields the sun that comes through the windows.   
“We’re already late,” she mumbles back and without warning gets up, picks up a few stray pieces of clothing and walks into the shower.  
“Why don’t you order some room service since we missed breakfast?” she shouts right before she’s shut out by the sound of running water.  
I shake my head in attempt to rationalize what just happened, I get up slower than she did, put on the same crimson dress I had on the night before and exit the suite quietly. I take the short way back to my room, hoping no one sees I’m wearing the same thing.   
Every second is an agonizing reminder of the night before. It isn’t the first time, but it is the first time in Paris. We’ve been here before, we’ve come and gone, fashion week after fashion week for 3 years. The world seemed to be spinning out of our neatly constructed control. The thoughts that swirl in my head are as chaotic as the Balenciaga gowns that swoosh past my seat. Lilac silk and turquoise satin, bodice skirts and peasant blouses I’ve never liked Balenciaga. It is too vain for its own good, lost in the glow of what it used to be and the rapidity of blue Ikea satchels. Nigel and Serena sit next to me.  
“Where were you last night?”  
“I went to bed,” I say and perhaps the bags under my eyes make them believe me.  
“But you must come out tonight. We won’t forgive you, there is a pub two blocks away it’s a local legend. They say Edit (Piaf) used to sing there.”  
“I’m sure Edith sang anywhere were there was free booze,” I clip back and it earns me an annoyed gaze from everyone around.  
“Says the annoying American tourist.”  
“Fine! I’ll be there in fact we’ll walk together,” I say in a fake cheerful voice.  
He seems satisfied and gives me thumbs as a few photographers start their flashes and he is whisked away by girls in black heels and men in flamboyant colors. He is in paradise.  
I can’t concentrate, all I can think about is the night before, her words slipping casually into the darkness. I don’t answer her texts, I can only imagine she asks why I left the room and if I’m okay. I know we really won’t cross paths today, she has lunch with Valentino and some witty interview with Runway online. Another reason why we can’t make our fling public. She’s … well she’s Miranda Priestly and I’m an assistant. A want to be journalist that has stayed for three years, lost her friends, and significant other and lives to inhale her scent and see her fall asleep. Not much for a love story.  
I scribble a few notes from the accessories walk-through but when I take a second look at the notepad in my hands I see squiggles and Miranda’s name. I close it quickly and make an escape to the hotel room. She won’t need me today, her schedule is perfectly curated and she will be too busy to look for me.  
Late in the evening the last session is in the Marina room of the Ritz. It is a tradition on the eve of the last full day in Paris. A thank you from Runway to the staff and the designers. I stay in the corner with Gigi. Almost at the end I catch a glimpse of her, she’s talking to Adam one of the top editors and a few other people. She turns and catches my stare. Her silver hair is impeccable, her eyes dressed in dark eye shadow that match her navy blue gown look swiftly across the room. I feel her glance over the black Vivian Westwood dress that she had chosen for me.  
“Let’s go to the pub,” I say to my companions.  
I turn away and bolt for the door.  
“Wow you’re in a hurry,” Emily blurts trying to catch up in her Manolos.   
“after all those boring sessions I need a drink,” I say.  
We reach the iconic pub and quickly take a seat by the bar. It’s already crowded and the bartender takes a minute to serve us.   
“Whiskey and coke’ I say.  
“You’re so plebian,” Nigel accuses across the bar and orders a round.  
“ shots of tequila,” he orders.  
I’m about to decline but then why not, it will help me not think.  
We are almost done with the second round when the rest of the people get there. It gets loud, conversations are started and interrupted. I feel very drunk, very fast and suddenly a young lady comes to the bar. She’s probably drunker than me.   
“Halo,” she murmurs in recognizable French accent and smiles.  
“You work for Runway right?” she asks and I find her accent endearing.   
I nod, “Andrea Sachs.”  
“Cosette Berger,” she answers smiling.  
“Your grandfather was Alex Berger?” I ask.  
“Je ne parle pas d’il,” she says and bends over to me, she’s wearing diamonds, obscene diamonds and the newest Guerlain scent. For someone who avoids talk of her magnate grandfather she sure is ostentatious.   
“Have you tried the house shot?” she slurs, “here try it.”   
She signals to the bartender “Deux!”  
“Pas, pas! Quatre!”  
She laughs and it’s like hearing a fake Hollywood movie but she’s pretty enough, large black eyes that stand out from everything else. They pop out of her fair face, in purple and smoke. Her black hair is curled around her face and she’s half wearing a fur coat, on top of a short and very tight orange Tom Ford, last season. It is almost like I was seeing a young Elizabeth Taylor in that movie where she’s drinking, well she’s drinking in every movie.  
She hands me the two shots and leans in putting her hand on my upper thigh, “they are fruity, no?” she smiles eyes unfocused. We have another round I don’t know where she came from my hand instinctively rests on her waist as I try to get up I’m feeling sleepy and I don’t want the night to end.  
I wander to the dance floor, the music is loud, pounding, it sinks into your bones and races your heart.   
She follows me, her hands roam my lower back, I can’t mistake what she wants.  
“I’ve got something,” she whispers in my ear, “bathroom in two.”   
Cocaine lines in the bathroom was something I had never done. Lately there was many things I hadn’t done. Working at Runway had changed the course of my life, altered who I was. Perhaps I always was this person, who slept with her boss and overdrank. The cocaine does have the effect people say, it wakes me up and startles me. My heart pounds and I feel as I could run a marathon and fly at the same time. I kiss her, I want to fuck this young woman in front of me.   
She shakes her head. I keep dancing, she’s bouncing with the music like there is no care in the world. I glace at the door, Miranda enters with a few other member of the executive team. They are all still wearing suits, ties and heels but ready to have a good time. She catches my eye I turn back pretending not to see. I walk over to the stool tables, I have a wave of nausea. She’s at my side in a second.   
“Are you okay?” she asks her cool and collected tone ices over me.  
I nod, throwing up to the side of the stools.   
She hands me a glass of water.

“Miranda is everything all right?” someone asks, I recognize the voice by my state of mind does not place it.  
“I love you” I say in between throwing up again.  
“Yes,” Miranda answers the woman. “My assistant doesn’t feel well.”   
“your assistant had too much of something,” someone else pipes in “we’ll call a chauffeur for her.”  
I turn in time to see her shake her head, there is a spot on the Vivian Westwood, it’s vomit and possibly coke.   
“I’ll take her, I’m tired anyway,” she answers and of course no one dares to contradict.  
The ride is quiet and when we finally reach her room she watches me from the desk chair.  
“Let’s dance,” I say still racing from everything in my system.  
“What are you doing?” she asks, “who was that girl?”  
“Drinking,” I slur and try to kiss her, she waves me off.  
“Was it that awful? That I love you? You could have just told me, instead of making a spectacle with that harlot.”  
I don’t answer. I like this jealous side of her, but I also can’t string sentences together.  
“Why didn’t you answer my texts?”  
“I . was . paying. attention. to . the . Balenciaga,” I joke, she’s not amused. She pours a glass of scotch and sit on the chair again throwing off her heels and taking a deep breath.  
“Fuck, just go to bed,”  
The rest of the night is a blur I can’t exactly remember what happened or didn’t happened all I know is I woke up the next day with a pounding head, a cloud in my thoughts from the drug no doubt and an empty bed.  
She was typing away already dressed, in the desk.   
“Good morning,” she says collected but warmly. Whatever anger she had from the night before had dissipated and she simply was Miranda.  
“Morning,” I answer.  
“how do you feel?”  
“I’m sorry,” I sputter trying to get out of bed.  
“I ordered room service there should be coffee and food coming. You had too much to drink and I don’t know what else.” Her statement is matter of fact and it does not border on reproach.  
“about yesterday…”  
“Why don’t you take a shower, we can talk about it after.”  
I nod and do as instructed. I know she does not want to hear a negative answer, she is prolonging my explanation. I don’t argue with it, I need time to clear my thoughts too.  
When I step out there is coffee poured for me, two sugars and no cream. I smile, she knows everything about me. The irony is not lost at that moment, and I can only imagine what anyone would say if they knew. If they knew the Dragon Lady knows how her assistant takes her coffee.  
I walk behind her and put my hand on her shoulder, “Miranda.”  
I know that whatever comes after her name will change our lives. It was no longer a secret affair, two friends stumbling home from the bar, it was no longer something simple and non-consequential this was telling everyone, it was forging a life, it was accepting she meant the world to me.  
“I meant what I said last night,” I hear myself saying and it was like a distant person saying.   
“What part?” she asks.  
“I love you, always have. I just never imagined you’d be the one to say it first.”  
She smiles and there is hope in blue diamond eyes but she pauses, purses her lips and says, “An-dre-ah, you don’t have to. I wasn’t sure if I should say it. The truth is I never though I would. You and I we weren’t supposed to be here. I never in a million years imagined I’d love you the way I do. You were just a friend, then life happened, the month’s and years happened, when I wanted to tell someone something you were the one I wanted to say it to, when I wanted to try a new place for food it was you who I wanted to try it with. When something happened with the twins I wanted you to be there. That first night I wasn’t only drunk, I loved you then too. But I don’t want you to feel you ever have to respond, I will stay with you until you decide we’re done and I will never ask you to love me back,” she’s pleading, she’s pleading for something. I’m not sure what it is, but I hate to see her plead. The woman who fires assistants like chickens in a lineup, the one that powerful men and woman are afraid to contradict is pleading to me.   
Her speech reminds me of Darcy, when he tells Elizabeth he loves her against his better judgment and aside from her low connections. I don’t know what she wants me to answer.  
“Oh darling,” I say.   
“I love you, I have for a long time now. Are you ready to face it all with me?” I ask and I am rewarder with a smile. The kind of smile she only saves for her daughters, and for very well crafted pieces, the kind that shines brighter than the Harry Winston pendant on her neck, the kind that she only gives to her old friend Oscar and her protégée Galliano.  
She stands up and opens her arms, and I fit into them like a glove, like we were meant to be.  
It was fate.  
“Now will you sit with me at the luncheon?”  
“Are you sure?”  
She’s referring to the same luncheon where she lied to Nigel, she’s referring to the same luncheon where a year after she made him Editor of Men’s Runway. She’s referring to the same luncheon where she launched Marcelino’s new venture and where now apparently she wants me to sit by her side.  
“No more questions,” she whispers, “you know how I hate them.  
I laugh, loud, too loud but sincerely and all the uncertainty of the world seems to melt away.  
“I’ll meet you in the lobby,” she states and I walk out of her suite for the second morning in a row with the same dress from the night before.  
I’m not sure what just happened, I don’t know how it was that I signed my life away. It wasn’t a game anymore, no backing out, I could not break her heart, I never would but I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to face what was to come. I take a deep breath, more of a venting sigh and walked briskly to my room.  
“Ready?” she asks as we meet in the lobby. There is a low hanging chandelier and orchids on the tall marble tables.  
“Everything better from last night?” Irv asks her.   
“Of course,” she answers narrowing her eyes and I see her left hand draw into a soft fist. There is another man behind Irv, he has green eyes and grey hair. A dark suit and a red shirt stand in contrast with Irv’s camel colored coat. The man eyes me but does not say a word.  
Irv opens his mouth again, “Miranda this is David, he’s joining Elias-Clarke’s board.”  
“David this is one of our top talents Miranda.”   
The man takes her hand and nods, “Everyone knows Miranda.” And though it is meant to be a compliment there is an ulterior connotation in his words.  
As if instead of saying she as famous, he were saying everyone knows cancer or something of that sort.  
David nods and Miranda speaks, “David a pleasure”   
“I’m sorry I haven’t introduced Andrea,” I had been so interested in the conversation and the body language that I forgot I was there.  
“David, Irv Andrea is my fiancée,” she sais without missing a beat, as if she’s been saying it for years, there is a flinch in both men but they meet the introduction with grace.   
My head swoons, people overhear the conversation. I’m not ready for paparazzi and questions. I take her offered hand because I feel like I’m going to fall.  
“Isn’t she your assistant?” Irv asks.  
She nods, “you know what they say about office relationships. Don’t worry, it’s all cleared with HR.”  
He nods. The tension could probably be sliced with a butter knife.  
“Shall we go eat?” Miranda suggests,  
David takes off , Irv steps in line with Miranda and whispers “I need a word with you.”  
“Of course, I will be at your office as soon as we’re back in New York.”  
He nods not very approvingly and walks off.  
“Fiancée?”  
“We can talk about that later,” she deadpans. I don't argue. I have no words. I'm not sure if she has simply hit them back for revenge. I'm not sure if we're engaged. I haven't agreed. Have I? Was that declaration a proposal? And if it wasn't, what was it? I did love her, the glamorous diva that strode the halls of Runway and design houses striking fear and admiration at the same time. I loved the mother, stripped down and bare. I loved the woman bathed in sunlight and nothing else. I walk behind her and sit through lunch with her but the thought of everything and nothing invade my head. What follows now? Do I just fit into there world? What about my own dreams? My own aspirations?   
“Are you sure you want this?” I ask after lunch.  
“Look, I can't live without you. The rest is unimportant.”  
Her words calm me and I smile, “Okay.”


	3. GREEN ROOMS AND BLUE WALLS

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories of how they met ~  
> Memories of bliss ~

I met Miranda five years ago at a hurried interview in which she insulted my sense of fashion and dismissed me in the most unprofessional manner. I met her that day; as a boss, as an icon, as a celebrity, as a bitch.  
Yet, it wasn’t until her birthday party six months later that I met her as a person. She was turning 48 and I was 25. 

“Miranda,” I say grasping a moment when she went to the bar by herself.  
“Andrea,” she returns, slightly annoyed and ordering a second drink.

“I know this is not something assistant normally do,” I pause, her eyes narrow, she sips on the negroni that is handed over to her.  
“I just want to say I admire your work so much.”  
If Emily had been near she probably would have fainted, she would have reprimanded me, asked what I thought I was doing? How dare I bestow a compliment, a useless compliment to Miranda. Did I want to get fired?  
Maybe I did. She stayed silent, a smile flashed across her face, she seemed human, almost caring.  
“Well, thank you,” she whispers and I’m dumfounded. I quickly blame the alcohol.  
‘But you don’t want to talk about that today, right?” I say rapidly to save her from whatever is coming next.  
“No,” she sais shaking her head melancholy as if she did want to talk about it, “In fact I really don’t want to talk about much today just drink” she finishes.  
“Happy birthday,” I say so nervously that it’s almost a whisper and hand her a card, sealed in an pale blue envelope.  
She takes it, this time no smile is granted, “Thank you.”  
It was short and I never thought she’d remember but the following month when I came in for my birthday I saw simple note sitting on my desk.  
“I also admire the work you do, but I’m sure you don’t want to talk about that today” she wrote in copy of the conversation we had.  
“Happy Birthday Andrea.”  
Her neat handwriting startles me, she wrote it. She didn’t buy it, or pawn it off to another assistant, to an intern, Miranda wrote me a birthday card.  
She signed it in a different colored pen, “Miranda Priestly.”  
I sent her an email, I wanted to thank her. I didn’t’ know why but it meant the world that she had remembered.  
“Thank you for the birthday note,” I write.  
Almost immediately she answers back, “no thanks needed.”  
“Well thank you anyway.”  
“If your really want to thank me, how about a drink?”  
I don’t respond right away. My fingers hoover over the keyboard.  
She is only a few feet away, she had never held a complete conversation with me, aside from Paris and that almost ended in disaster.  
And yet here we are emailing about having a drink. The absurdity of it hits me like ice cubes. Is this a joke? Does she find this funny? Or is she honest? She must have millions of people, important people, famous designers, celebrities, politicians who are dying to have a drink with her. Why me?  
“I would like that,” I finally respond against my better judgement. I feel like a moth running to the flame, I feel like a willing victim taken to the gallows and yet the rampart anticipation of having her close, of seeing her smile, of watching her laugh consumes me. What is wrong with me?  
“Tonight at 7, the green room? Do you know it?” she replies.  
I smile and nod at the screen as if she was seeing me.  
“I will see you there.” I reply.

~ The Green Room ~

“Thank you for humoring me Andrea,” she says as soon as I approach the table. The bar is an isolated corner of the downtown hotel. It’s dark brown leather booths and matching bar top. The back is a vintage green the kind you see in Frank Sinatra’s documentaries. Smooth jazz plays softly in the background and the bartender is middle aged man with a friendly smile and brown sandy eyes.  
“Vodka martini, extra olives” she orders.  
“You know it’s not part of your job, right? I would not fire you if you refused a drink with me.”  
“What makes you think I would refuse a drink with you?” I ask.  
I haven’t even ordered a drink and the conversation is tense already.  
“Make it two,” I signal to the bartender.  
She purses her lips, “I don’t know, something along the lines of me being a bitch? A hard to please boss who makes life hell?”  
I want to laugh at the way she says it. It’s vain and non-challant as if she enjoys it.  
“That has nothing to do with who you are as a person,” I say not denying her accusations but shying away from them.  
“You really think so? You think I’m worth having as a friend?” she asks very slowly and her face deliberately turns toward me, the martinis arrive making a soft thud on the oak table.  
I nod.  
She smiles, her ice blue eyes warm up, there is a sparkle in them, her lashes look up at me.  
“The truth is Andrea, I’m not much different in real life. I’m a difficult person, and I don’t have many … friends. I have acquaintances, and professional relationships, and yes many people who I go to functions and dinners and cocktail parties,” she’s still looking at me. I down the martini, she’s making me nervous.  
“Yet, true friends? Well I don’t have many of those. Your card, your birthday card. I never had anyone give me something so simple, except maybe my daughters. I thought maybe you are different after all.”  
“Different than all the other silly girls?” I ask.  
She chuckles, “yes Andrea, different than all those silly girls.”  
“Would you like to order food?” she asks.  
She barely has any make-up on and she’s not wearing heels. Instead she’s got Chanel flats.  
“Sure” I say still confussed.  
“Pretzels? do you like pretzels?”  
“Love them. But you don’t strike me as a person who likes carbs,” I blurt.  
“We’ll get a pretzel,” she ignores me.  
The bartender nods.  
“Tell me about you Andrea. I don’ t know anything about you,” her voice is honest and calm. She seems to have lost the edge she has at Runway, her features are relaxed, the martini swirls in her hand and I feel as I’m on a first date.  
“Well, I’m not very interesting either,” I say.  
She raises an eyebrow  
“I have a cat named princess. I went to Northwestern, my father wanted me to go to Stanford law to be a lawyer like him. I wanted to come to New York and be a journalist. I wanted to work for the New York times, the Washington Post. I applied everywhere, and fate would have it I would work for Runway.”  
“For now,” she interjects.  
I smile, “Yes, for now.”  
“Go on,”  
“I moved here with my boyfriend Nate, but we broke up a few months ago. I live with a roommate for now, and constantly battle my parents who want me to move back to Ohio.”  
She chuckles softly again, “I can’t see you in Ohio.”  
I shake my head. “I can’t see myself either, I love New York. I could never see you anywhere else either.”  
“I’m from Maine,” she confesses.  
“My father was a journalist too, he was the editor for the London Evening Standard,” she confesses.  
“Wow, I never knew.”  
“You would have known if you googled me,” she winks.  
“I love pizza,” I continue, “and don’t normally google people I meet.”  
“Well, since you won’t google me, I’ll have to tell you I also love pizza but never eat it.”  
“Ah, there is a great pizza place by my house, so if you’re ever by my house I’ll have to show you.”  
“Well, Andrea so happens we’re by your house right now,” the Runway editrix says.  
“That is quite true” I say and gulp my martini down ‘are you ready?”  
“sure” she whispers putting on her coat and walking out with me.  
“I’ll call Roy,”  
“Let’s walk, it’s close and we can burn the calories,” I say.  
For a moment I think she’s going to say I’m crazy but the words that come out of her mouth are soft, “So it is.”

~ THE PRESENT; PARIS HOTEL~

“I still have that birthday card,” Miranda says and startles me from the memories.  
“What?” I say gripping the cup of coffee I was holding tighter.  
“I have that birthday card, the first one you gave me. I have it in my office.”  
“Liar,” I chuckle.  
“True, top drawer under the picture of Alicia and my father.”  
I keep quiet, “Why aren’t you in bed?”  
“I wasn’t sleepy and I love to see you sleep,” I say.  
“that’s slightly morbid,” she chuckles patting the bed space next to her. I shake my head, “We have to get ready it’s 3 hours till our flight leaves.  
“As you say,” she sighed straightening up from bed and finger combing her silver locks.  
~ YEARS AGO~ 

“I have never seen your hair not be perfect,” I joked as I picked Miranda up from her town home for an early breakfast. This was the second time we had met up outside of work. It had been exactly a week since we went for martinis and pizza. 

“Is there alcohol at this breakfast place? “ she asked.

“But of course” I say, “do you think I”d take you out early Sunday morning and not provide you with mimosas and bloody mary’s? They also make great tequila sunrises.”  
“you know what would be nice?” she asks to no one in particular but I answer nonetheless.  
“what?”  
“To actually get away.”  
“Like a weekend?” I ask again.  
“Yes, next weekend.”  
“Where would you go?”  
“I don’t know, let’s go to the country. I have a house in the Berkshires.”  
“I thought you were going to say in the Hamptons.”  
I don’t comment on the fact that she has just included me. Maybe she’s talking about her daughters, maybe it’s a figure of speech?  
“no,” she sulks, “that’s my mothers and I don’t talk to her.”  
“shut up really?”  
She nods, “but like I said we don’t talk”  
“well the country it is then?”  
“I’ll have Roy pick you up next Friday night, the girls can join Saturday.”

~THE PRESENT; TIFFANY’S FLAGSHP STORE, NEW YORK.~

I smiled at the memory as we entered the familiar store, with armed guards at the door and light blue painted over their décor.  
“How did you have it made so fast?” I asked in awe of the ring that somersaulted on my hand.  
She chucked, “I had it made a while ago, I wasn’t sure when I’d use it, if I’d ever have the courage to use it, but I had them store it for me.”  
“Miss Priestly, will you be taking it home today?” a cheerful young man with a brown beard and grey eyes asked approaching the counter.  
“I don’t know,” Miranda answered “ it’s all up to the lady here” she paused and I look up.  
“What do you say Andrea will you marry me?” she asked softly.  
It wasn’t until that moment, until the words are spoken in her usual soft and articulate way that I realize it’s true. I am about to be her fiancée.  
“Oh my god!” the young attendant gasped and someone snapped a picture.  
“Yes, yes a thousand times yes!!” I said and slipped my arms around her navy blue dress. Every insecurity, at least for those seconds of bliss disappear into the turquoise walls that have become so prevalent in society they have their own shade of blue.  
She grasped my hands slowly and gave me a soft chaste kiss, she smelled like Valentino, she always wore Valentino.

“I would marry you if you gave me a ring pop” I whisper  
She laughs again, ‘you didn’t sound so confident Paris.”  
“I love you,” I whisper just as everyone in the store congratulates us, the concierge offers dinner at a nearby chic restaurant and we agree.  
“Miranda, I was never the marrying type,” I sputter as we get in the to the restaurant the concierge has reserved for us.  
“I know,” she says.  
“I was always dead set on independence, I hated roles, and rules. I never wanted to belong to anyone,” and I know she has felt like that too, she talked about her ex husband.  
“I know but,” she starts and I know she’s going to say how it will be different, I won’t belong to her only I don’t need convincing.  
“But I want to belong to you,” I say wrapping my fingers around her free hand.  
“oh,” she stops, “you do?” she turns to me.  
“I do, and I want you to keep me safe. with you I don’t need to be tough, I know that I can give you my heart.”

“and have you?”  
“you know I have.”


	4. ONE NIGHT STAND

“What are you thinking of?” I hear and my day dreams return to reality.  
“us.”  
“Us? Really?” she raises an eyebrow, questioning.  
“Yes,” I say.  
“I was thinking of the first weekend we got away.”  
She laughs out loud, “my country house.”  
I nod, “ I wish you still had it.”  
She shrugs ,”I have a mountain cabin now.”  
“True but doesn’t beat that first weekend.”  
“It’s more romantic,” she argues.  
“I wouldn’t know last time we went we had five of your friends there.”  
“It was a work trip, Andrea,”  
“No, you made it a work trip,” I pout.  
“You’re still mad about it,” she laughs.  
“No,” I shake my head. Her eyes look over at me from the sofa. We’re sitting in the den at the townhome. I pretty much live here since the girls left for college a few months ago. Sometimes it’s hard to think that so much time has passed. That I have known Miranda for so many years, that we have been engaged for almost three years now and that the girls are adults now, living on their own, far from home.  
‘Yes you are.”  
“ I mean it was a our one year anniversary of being exclusive.”  
“You had said we would have no anniversaries and you didn’t really want to be exclusive for other reason than it made it easier,” she puts her hand on her hip.  
“I was wrong, and I was also afraid to fall in love and I was also jealous of that guy you were seeing.”  
“I wasn’t seeing him,” her features soften.  
“It sure seemed like it”  
“I like jealous you,” she smiles. Big broad smiles that I have grown used to seeing.  
“Miranda?” I interrupt suddenly.  
She looks at me draped around the sofa so casually it drips with elegance. She’s wearing a black pencil dress, as she often does when whe goes to work, a golden necklace adorning her otherwise somber façade. her hair hangs from her head in perfect tandem with the rays of soft light that fall on her face.  
“Tell me you know what we’re doing?”  
She looks up, dark stormy blue in her eyes, today had been her last day at the Runway for few months, we would move to her family home in a week's time. We were taking time off to reconstruct our life together and she would also help her mother run the firm.  
She shook her head slightly, “I don’t, I never do.”   
She smiled and I somehow knew we’d be okay.  
“I love you.”  
She nods   
“I know.”   
I hang on to her words, I’m desperate for her to say it back. Even though her promise wraps around my fingertip, sparkling in all it’s high price tag and elegance, even though she has changed her life and risked her dreams for me, I still want to hear it back from her. I want to know that she feels the same compulsive obsession about me.   
“Andrea,” she whispers like a soft caress.  
“mmm”  
“can you grab me a glass of whiskey, darling?”  
I nod, not the romantic words I was waiting for.  
I bring her the glass.  
She traces my hand, I’m not sure why but I have this faint feeling that this moment we will remember forever.  
She pulls herself together and drags me slowly to the sofa with her.  
“I love you, everything about you, the way you try to look away when you’re uncomfortable, the subtle curves on your waist, the lines that line your smile, the way you fear being alone, and being with people. I love the way you drink your wine, and how you always close your eyes when I kiss you. You will marry me right? You will let me flaunt you as mine? You will sign a paper where I can leave you everything I cherish?” she asks so vulnerable it hurts something in my soul. It reminds me of the hotel room in Paris, she’s pleading again. I don’t know why, I love her more than anything. Yet, perhaps she knows more than I do? Perhaps her gain on years over me makes her wiser, smarter, less naïve.  
“why would I not?”  
she shrugs and holds me even closer  
“Because life is dark like so.”  
“Don’t say that, we will be fine,” I say trying to convince both of us.  
She nods and closes her eyes.  
I run my fingers along the side of her body, on top of the thick fabric that outlines her dress.  
I reach slowly for the zipper of her dress and she keeps quiet.  
I turn her over like a pawn her perfect hair pressed against the beige of the couch.  
I strip her down, like a doll. She is a life size Barbie I have been gifted.  
She lets me.  
This is a promise, a quiet one.  
“I will always love you, no matter what or who  
This here is our night, out moment, our love,” I whisper in her ear.  
She makes me follow her to the bedroom.  
The one where she first kissed me.  
I was so quiet then too.  
It seemed like I had no recollection, like I could not make it home, but I knew I saw it coming.  
I saw her fingers second guess themselves as she helped me with my coat that night years ago.  
“Andrea, darling,” she said and handed me a glass of water, we were good friends by that time.  
“I think I drank too much” I slur.  
“water?”  
I shook my head.  
She leaned in to untie my hair.  
“hungry?”  
I shook my head again.  
“Miranda,” I’m not sure what I wanted to say.  
“Andrea, are you okay?  
I nodded and tried to get up but failed.  
She catches me and I leaned into her. She kissed me without hesitation until it was over she apologized.  
I shrugged and leaned in again.  
“Whiskey, you taste like whiskey,” I remember saying and wrapped my arms around her waist.

When I woke up, I could not recollect what had happened but there was a calm seeing that it was her next to me. She was naked, and her hair mussed over the pillow.  
“Hello,” she whispered resting on her arm.  
“My head is killing me,” I say.  
“I know.”  
“What time is it?” I ask.  
“About last night?” she starts.  
“I’m sorry.” I say  
“Are you?”  
“what?   
“Are you really sorry?” she asks and dread over what I should answer falls on me. If I say I am will she hate me, will she think I used her? Will our friendship that I value turn awkward because of a one night stand? And if I’m honest, if I say I am not sorry. If I say I had wanted to do that for so long, will she walk away from me?

I shake my head,   
“Of nothing?”  
“Of drinking,” I smile  
“Mmmmhhh” she hums.  
I go into the bathroom and ask “ Can I use your shower?”  
“yes, of course,” she yells.  
I shower quickly, anxiety gnawing at my core.  
When I come out a towel wraps around my body and she blushes.  
“Oh come on you blush after last night?” I joke.  
She closes her eyes, “I should not have.”  
“really?”  
“I don’t want to mess up our friendship. I don’t have many friends,” she tells me and there is a wrinkle on her forehead as she speaks.  
I leaned in and kissed her, I remember that and she didn’t say a thing except put her hands in my hair and kiss me back.


	5. Margaret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More memories as the years go by.

“Why now? Why after all this time? “ her mother asks.  
I stared down at the porch swing where I sat across the floorboards where the older woman sat on a porch bench facing the sun big sunglasses and a hat, Kentucky derby style. She wore a grey pencil dress as she sipped sweet tea that only exists in the south.  
“You broke her heart,” she drawls out. Margaret is the spitting image of Miranda, she’s thin and milky white, she’s got gorgeous blue eyes and a monotone voice. If it weren’t for the years of difference and the shoulder length hair they could be twins, oh and the completely opposite character. Margaret was a woman of tradition, raised in the South and settled in Maine after her first divorce she was steadfast and strong. She always spoke her mind, extremely wealthy and completely humble, a hard combination to find. 

“I know’ I said without hesitation, “but I love her.”  
“Andrea, you left her a month before the wedding, she risked everything for you, her dreams, her career, her life, her family because you changed her and then you couldn’t do the same for her.”  
I wanted to say that she was wrong, that I had to, I could not disappoint my family, I could not leave my dreams but I can’t. She’s right. 

“She didn’t get out of bed for days, what makes you think shed want to see you now? That she still loves you?”  
“ One day Margie, I woke up I looked at myself in the mirror and I was so miserable. I couldn’t understand why, I had everything I ever wanted big expensive pent house, the job I wanted, the car, the friends but I was missing the one person I’d want to share anything with.”  
There was a silence and she looked down toward the white wood tiles that perfectly lined the porch. I got up and reached across, kneeled next to her and grabbed her hand. She shook her head and poured me a glass of the tea she was drinking. It smelled like bourbon, I took a sip. It had bourbon.  
“I don’t expect her to still love me, or want to see me or forgive me but Margaret I have to try… please help me?”  
“Darling girl,” she starts and I know it was not going to be good. Southerners always start something bad with a beautiful sentence, “I saw my daughter cry herself to sleep. The twins came back from college for a year. You didn’t just leave Miranda, you left all three of them, they had to rearrange themselves as a family, again! They could not understand why you would leave her. You had started the adoption process. I don’t think I have ever seen her like that, not when she got a divorce, never. She loved you like she loved no one else. If you said jump she would ask how high. When she finally went back to work she was a shell of who she was before. Until one day she learned the adoption process had kept going and they had found a baby for you two. She took it and this child is the light of her world. I don’t know that I want to disrupt that for her,” she finishes.  
“We have a baby?” I asked hope in my voice.  
The older matriarch shook her head, “No she has a daughter. Cassidy and Caroline have a sister.”  
“What’s her name?”  
“It doesn’t matter, what matters is that I don’t want to ever put my daughter through that.”  
“Margie I swear to you, I would never leave her again, please if there is any chance she loves me.”  
“Andrea, it’s been five years,” she says my name just like Miranda. I look over at her, our eyes meet. I know she knows. I can see it in the way she stares at me and looks away. She knows I’ve changed, but she can’t risk her daughters heart.  
Again I nodded in silence, I was about to get up when she held my hand.  
“But, I have also seen her be the happiest with you, you made her change her view in life, you opened her heart again, you brought laughter, you brought her back to me and for that I will help you. But if you break her heart again.”  
“I won’t,” I say smiling.  
“If you hurt her in any way, I will kill you,” she didn’t mean it as a figure of speech.  
“I love her,” I say my voice breaking as I fought back tears.  
“We’re having dinner tomorrow, our favorite restaurant she will be there at 730 come by I think this will be easier in a pubic setting. At least to start.”  
I nodded.  
“It’s Andrea, she named her after you. Andrea Carmela Priestly.”  
“Thank you,” I say and walk down the steps to my car.  
I don’t know that I had much hope, whatever road awaited was going to be long and winding. I didn’t expect her to forgive me right away, I didn’t really expect her to forgive me at all. 

~ Years ago: Manhattan New York ~

“Miranda, last weekend. I think we were both crossing the line. You’ve become like my best friend. I can tell you anything, I don’t want to ruin that.” I told her one day as we were walking to a wine bar.

It’s a weak move because I’m pretty much taken by her. I don’t just want to be her friend, I want to have her in my bed every night, but I don’t tell her that. I look away, away from her blue eyes that I know will redden because she wants to cry. Away from the loose black dress that ties around the waist and flows to her ankles.  
“I completely agree,” she answers “but we can’t go back to being friends. One can never undo such things.”  
“We can be more than friends? For a while?” I offer.  
“Sure,” she shrugs so uncaring that it makes me second guess my own feelings for her.  
“Until we get it out of our system?” I say again trying to sound non- challant.  
I am met with the same stoic response, “Sure.”  
We arrive at the wine bar.  
“Andrea,” she grabs my hand before I open the leather bound menu, “don’t over think it, it didn’t mean a thing.”  
“but you said,” and my thoughts go to back to the night in her home. They go back to the way she says she doesn’t want to ruin our friendship. They go back to the way she kissed me.  
“I know what I said.”  
“so are we still friends?”  
She chuckled slightly and suddenly she caressed the back of my hand  
“We’re whatever you want us to be”  
I nod perplexed and disappointed.

 

~ Present: Burberry Restaurant: Maine~

“What ….”she lowers her glasses from her face, she wants to say something but can’t think of what.  
“how are you here? Mom?”  
“Darling sit down, shut your mouth and don’t make a scene,” Margaret instructs and Miranda complies.  
“she smooths her pleated black dress and takes of her coat.”  
“Miranda,” I start.  
“How dare you?” she said gritting her teeth and taking a gulp of her mother’s dry martini.  
“I never want to see you again. I didn’t think I would have to write it down for you.”  
“I … Miranda I know you hate me.”  
Her mother stands up and walks away, it was the two of us in a staring contest.  
“Ladies can I get you something?” the tall olive skinned waiter interrupts.  
“Scotch, single malt,” I say not bothering with a brand.  
“Two” she follows.  
“I did everything wrong,” I confess tired and genuine. I don’t want to defend my case, there is nothing to defend. I don’t want to excuse the years, the faults, the hurt. I just want her to listen to me.  
“I don’t hate you. But you played me worse than anyone else. I never want to see you again,” she explains. An explanation I expected.  
The scotch arrived. I gulped it down.  
“I don’t expect you to forgive me but hear me out.”  
“Hear you out? Did you hear me out? Every phone message, every call? Every time I tried to talk to you. I begged you! I pleaded with you. I can accept that I always loved you more, I can accept that you wanted freedom. I can accept it all, I could have understood if you had asked. If you had given me the courtesy of telling me you were leaving,” tears start to stream down her ocean blue eyes, “I opened up my tightly closed world to you! I let you in my house, my family, you left the twins! You went through hall the trouble of befriending the Ice Queen and then you left me. It would have been better if you had said I wasn’t worth it as friend all those years ago, when I asked. Please leave. This is dinner with my mother, and you’re ruining it.”  
“Can we meet another day?”  
“I never want to talk to you again,” states clearly.  
I nod “ I want to see her.”  
“who?” she asks confused.  
“Our daughter,” I whisper.  
This time she gets up, there is fire around her, “you’re a fucking bitch, how dare do you even presume?” her voice is just low enough to not be heard but loud enough to resonate in my thoughts.  
“Just leave, that’s all” she signals with her hands for me to leave.  
I do without a single word, without looking back.  
I hadn’t expected it to be easy, but I hadn’t expected it to hurt so much. I didn’t want to hurt her again, maybe part of loving her was accepting I messed up and letting her go?  
I didn’t want to continue, I was probably completely wrong about this. I had left, I had decided this was all wrong. I should go back home, I should keep having non consequential relationships to guys my family approves of and who only want to get me in bed. I laugh at the veracity of those thoughts.

I don’t go back home right away, but I didn’t call her at all. I simply did some city walking, some shopping I hadn’t been to Maine since I decided to leave five years ago.

“Hello,” someone almost whispers to be at R+D Kitchen restaurant. I was sitting at the bar after some shopping.  
“Margaret,” I nod.  
“I thought you left,” she whispers.  
“Are you using that as a cache for me to tell you why I didn’t leave? Because if you didn’t think I was still here you would not have called my hotel and asked where I would be,” I say laughing as I slide a drink across the bar to her.  
“You do know me,” she smiles.  
“I do. You’re just like her at times.”  
“I thought you would leave,” she corrects.  
“I thought I would, but I haven’t been to this city in a long time and it brings back good memories.”  
“So are you giving up?”  
I smiled and shook my head “No, but I don’t want to hurt her.”  
“You already did,” she voices, “what happened to the desperate girl of seven days ago, the one who begged me to help her?”  
“she has finally grown up.”  
“Andrea, Miranda loves you.”  
“I know but she’s right I left, and I hurt her and I can’t presume that she would forgive me so easily and I don’t have the strength to fight. I am not the same girl that left, she’s not the same. We’ve all grown up. I turn 36 in a few months and life is not the same as it was when we met 10 years ago. I have to go back to work.”  
“I understand. But Andrea this is your last chance, there are no other chances,” she pauses by my shoulder on her way out.  
“I know Margie, but she’s happy. I know she is, she has a baby and she has you and the twins. I have my career and my mother and we will be okay. We are content without memories.”  
“You sound so passive, nothing like the fiery spirit that came home with my daughter. The one that would tell her everything would be fine and that you would help her start an empire. I thought that I could never repair the broken relationship with her and here I am having weekly lunch with her and helping her raise a daughter.”  
“Goodbye Margie, that care of them both,” I say as she walks out.  
“I told you she wouldn’t want to fight for me,” came Miranda’s voice out of the shadows.  
“whatever did you tell her?”  
“The truth, that she hurt me and I didn’t want to see her.”  
“I think it worked and I think she’s too broken.”  
“Well she could not have expected me to just forgive her.”  
Margie shook her head.  
“I would have talked to her, I would have let her meet Arlie but she didn’t even want to try a second time?”  
Margie shrugged, she knew her daughter was hurting again.

 

~Present : Los Angeles, California.

“What are you thinking about?” Sonia asked.  
“huh?”  
“You’re gone, you’ve got this vague look and you’re not going back to work.”  
“I was thinking about the past, just missing New york and maine,” I lie.  
“I’m glad you’re home, but you seem so sad lately”  
“I’m fine,” I chuckled “don’t worry.”  
“I’m you’re mother it’s my job to worry.”

~Years Ago : New York~

“I’m you’re girlfriend it’s my job to worry,” Miranda whispers, “now tell me why are you sad?”  
“I am not sad I just worry about my family,” I blurt out.  
“and us?”  
“Y e s” I sounded out.  
“How about we get away, let’s go to Hawaii before I start at the September Issue.”  
“No.”  
“I can go vacation whenever,” she said reaching out for my hand.  
“It’s not about that, it’s about me not being able to pay. I feel bad.”  
“But you shouldn’t,” she smiles and leans in to kiss my cheeks.  
“I know,” I know this will be a losing battle.  
“so…”  
“No.”  
“Come on, my lover, my future wife I want to take care of you.”  
“But I don’t want you to waste money.”  
She chuckles.  
“Of all people I would never, make you out to care about me wasting money, I love you don’t you get it. Do it for me I love the beach!”  
“Me too,” I finally say.  
Pleaseeee” she pretended to beg getting on top of be an pushing me to the edge of the pool. Her whole body pressed against mine.  
“Okay”  
“I mostly want to see you in a bikini,” she jokes.  
“I am already in a bikini right now,” I say. We are sitting in the edge of the pool.  
She untied the top string of my suit, “you were in a bikini.” She chuckled and bit my shoulder.  
“you don’t play fair”  
“Love isn’t fair,” she whispers before throwing me in the pool only to follow me.

~ Present: Los Angeles California.

“Hello…” my mother echoed bringing me out of the memory.  
“I’m sorry I’m just really tired mom, I’m going to go home.”  
“Are you sure you’re okay?”  
“yes I’m just going to work tomorrow I better get rest.”  
My mother acted like she understood, kissed me goodbye and closed the door.

The following morning was long at work, I had messages piled on my desk. I was about to open the top one when Edgar walks in unannounced.  
“What the hell, where did you go?” he demands.  
I look up, readjust my glasses and ask, “what do you mean?”  
“Andrea, you came over and disappeared before I woke up, I tried to call you, I texted you, I even emailed you and no answer. You’re secretary tells me you’re on vacation for two weeks and now you’re back and you act like nothing?”  
I inhale as he sits down across the desk from me.  
“I don’t see why I would owe you an explanation of my life,” I say knowing perfectly well that it’s going to sting.  
“What! We’ve been dating for almost five months!”  
“We’re not dating Edgar. We’re friends, colleges whatever you want to call it.”  
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he runs his hand through his hair and waits as I was going to say something else I don’t. Whenever I have a big negotiation I always use silence as a technique.

“I’ve been seeing you every day or week or whatver, you come over all the time what is that then?”  
“we’re casual … friends?  
“I think we’re in a relationship and you go off for a week to do what? See a secret love?” I think he’s guessing but that was so close to the truth.  
I look away, “we have no exclusivity clause so it would not be secret.”  
“jesus! “ he exclaims getting up.  
“I hope we can keep our cordial relationship, you’re my colleague.”  
“I don’t even know what to say, this is it? we’re over?” He’s wavering between sadness and tears.  
“We’re not over because we never started?” I say questioning.  
He walk toward the door, “ and then they say guys are asses!” he slams the door so it does not close.  
I look down at the memo I had started to read. My heartbeat is racing, I’m flushed and my hands shake a little. I didn’t expect that on my first day back at work.  
“I hope that’s not how all your clients walk out,” a quiet voice asks.  
I would have known that timbre anywhere, in the darkness and in a dream  
“Miranda?” I say looking up.  
“Is it?”  
“Is it what?”  
“How all your clients walk out?”  
“no.. what are you doing here?”  
“So he’s not a client”  
“no… he’s a …was a friend.”  
She nods and sits down. She’s wearing a polka dot top and a black loose skirt that reaches down to her ankles.  
“oh that kind of friend.”  
I blush. I have no word to say. I sit back down as she picks up a pencil from my desk.  
“You left,” she says.  
I shake my head “I did what you wanted, for once.”  
“You didn’t try,” she keeps going.  
I don’t understand, “you asked me to leave.”  
“You don’t always do what I ask.”  
“Is this a game? or I don’t know. I left because I didn’t want to hurt you anymore. You were right I was the idiot that left you, and I could not expect for you to forgive me.”  
“But you should have known, I love you enough to forgive you. A love like ours is enough to forgive. Just like I knew you’d come back at some point.” She said it so matter of fact that I simply stared.  
“um”  
“I would say it’s wisdom that comes with age,” she gave a dry chuckle, “I’m not sure.”  
“Miranda I,”  
“you what?” she murmurs so softly it’s almost a whimper and I want to hold her so.  
“Now what?” I say.  
“Well is your friend gone for good?”  
“huh? I say  
“The angry client,” she said getting out of the chair and walking about he office.  
“you’ve done good. I’m very proud of you. You have everything you wanted. Ms. Sachs, top 10 PR firm in the west coast quite an honor.”  
“I don’t have you,” I say finally snapping out of my trance and getting up to where she was in the corner of the office.  
“you can,” she said softly  
“What happens now?” I ask again treading on eggshells.  
“You take me out to dinner, hopefully. ” she laughs.  
I laugh back.  
“I’m not sure Andrea. I … we have different lives now. You live here in LA. I live in New York. You have a whole firm to look after. I can’t leave my company. I have Andy. I don’t know what we do now. I can’t promise it will be easy. You broke my heart.”  
she stops I want to say how sorry I am but she knows, and it sounds so cliché. I nod.  
“I never thought you’d leave. Much less that you’d leave for years, or that you would do it like you did. Pack your suitcase and give me a note four weeks before the ceremony. It was the hardest part of my life. I am still hurt, and I … it will take time for me to trust you fully, to trust that you won’t leave again. Buuuut I still love you. I always will and if you feel the same way as last week, then I want to give this a second chance.”  
I nod “I do.”  
“okay”  
“Miranda?”  
“mmmmhhh”  
“why did you name her after me?”  
“in the off chance that you didn’t come home, I’d always have an Andrea.”  
I smiled, she leaned in and kissed me softly on the cheek.  
“Promise me it’s going to work and you’re going to try”  
“I want you back, and I will do whatever it takes,” I answer.  
She sighs.

I walked to the phone  
“Marie cancel my appointments for today,”

“Mr. Porter is here from porter investments. You have a meeting in 10 minutes.”  
“I have a family emergency.”  
“should I cancel?”she sounded confused.  
I looked up at Miranda, she looked away.  
“Yes I’ll pay him a call at his office at his convenience.”  
“You don’t have to,” Miranda mouths at me.  
“I do,” I answer and put on my coat  
“Ready? I know just the perfect spot”  
It was a quiet Italian food restaurant I had just discovered, overlooking the waves.  
“Come live with me,” I say knowing she will never agree.  
“I can’t leave Runway.”  
“I nod and take a bite of marsala.”  
“We’ve wasted so much time, I’ve wasted so much time. I’m not going to expect us to just be perfect, I know I hurt you deeply. I know you said you can forgive me but we never forget fully. I broke your heart, the very thing I promised I would not do.”  
“I don’t think you ever promised such a thing. In fact I quite recall you being very reluctant to declare us a thing. The truth is my darling I have always loved you more. And I’m perfectly okay with that.”  
“Perhaps a few years ago I would have agreed,” I said pausing taking a look at her silver hair. “I would have said that I loved you but I was afraid. I could have blamed many things, my age, my family, whatever but I don’t think you love me more. I broke my own heart. I can’t go on living without you, I love you more than anything, this time apart from you made me realize you are my everything. I missed the way you woke up in the morning and dug your head in your pillow I missed the softness of your hand upon my hair when things went wrong and I cried. I missed the way you looked at me from afar when you thought I wasn’t looking it made me feel like I was worth a million dollars. I missed the nights in the porch, dreaming of a family naming stars and drinking wine. I missed my best friend the one I could tell anything to. I missed my lover, the one I could spend days with in bed and never tire. I missed you, not because I was lonely but because I love you with every fiber of my body. Because you became like the air I breathed. Because on day I saw myself in a mirror with everything I ever wanted and I was so unhappy. Because I wanted to share it all with only one person …. You.”  
She opened her mouth to say something. Instead she took a sip of her beer.  
She let out a deep sigh and I realized she was crying.  
“Why didn’t you start with that speech at dinner?” she laughed.  
“I am not just saying it Miranda, I mean it.”  
“I know.”  
“I won’t leave it all again for you,” she declares.  
‘I’m not asking you to,” I say.  
“Can we meet halfway?”  
I shake my head, “I will meet you all the way.”  
“You would not give this up, I don’t want you to,” she talks of my life in Los Angeles and my Publicity Firm.  
“I can make an east coast branch. It can be a satellite office. I will think of something but I want to be home with you… I mean if your ready.”  
“I was ready five years ago,” she laughs.  
I smile.  
“But I do have one condition, well two,” she starts.  
“Anything”  
“You still have to marry me, and you have to legally adopt Andy and you have to tell your mother.”  
I nod, “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”  
It’s her turn to smile that smile I had missed so much, the one that she used to give me so freely.  
“How long do you have here?” I ask.  
“A week.”  
“Can you extend it?”  
She nods “I don’t want to keep little Andrea at a hotel so long.”  
“You brought her?” I say and my voice quiets and breaks.  
“I was hoping,” she stops.  
“can I…” I stop.  
“You can meet her, she waiting to meet you, ” she reads my obvious thoughts.  
“do you want to stay at my house, only if, ” I’m about to say only if she wants but her answer cuts me off.  
“yes.”  
“Great I’ll… um… pick you up from … where are you staying,” I rant. When I’m nervous I rant.  
“Well I kind of want you to come with me.”  
I nod and we finish dinner with random discussions of California and then we go to the bathroom.  
I drag her in because I can’t wait, because I’ve been waiting five years to touch her, I gently lean her against the wall and she moans quietly, my hand pulls up her skirt and she sits on the sink. It’s so raw and so unromantic but we don’t notice, her hands are on my bra her mouth find my breasts and I almost forget what I’m doing but I don’t.  
My hands to ache to please her, she comes easily I bite her shoulder she lets out a string of ‘fucks’ and ‘oh yes god’.  
Someone nocks at the door and we’re startled. We almost forgot where we were.  
“Lets go to my room,” she whispers and we tidy up. The lady outside stares at us we can’t help but laugh.


	6. MAINE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Discovering the woman under the persona ~ and more memories or a broken relationship.

It wasn’t as easy as you’d think. In fact it was just as hard as we said it would be, turns out love does not conquer it all at one time. We had grown good at being alone, so good it scared us to change the pattern of our lives.  
Change we knew from out past was the scariest venture, change had brought us together but change had broken us apart.

 

~Years ago : New York

“I can’t face my mother,” Miranda had said when her brother passed away.  
“I don’t want to go back home.”  
“But you have to,” I said. We had been friends for over a year. We were in each other’s company frequently but this was different. When she called that night it wasn’t her usual demanding call to go grab a drink because work had been draining, or to visit the newest restaurant about town her voice was husky and almost a whisper.  
“Are you terribly busy?”  
Terribly? She never used that word.  
“Not really,” I answered.  
“Would it be awful of me to ask you to come over?”  
“Over where?” I said thinking she’d designate a spot, a new restaurant, a play, a fashion show.  
There was a pause in her words, “the townhouse.”  
I had been to her house only twice, both times outside of delivering the book, or picking up Patricia. Both of those times we had consumed too much alcohol.  
“Of course not” I answered aside from my hesitations, “ is everything okay?”  
There it was the silence again, and then in between soft sobs, “mylittlebrotherdied can you please come?”  
“I’ll be right there,” I said as I was walking out the door.  
I didn’t know what I would say, or what I would do. I was terrible at consoling people, at making them smile. I hated to see people cry and I didn’t know why I had agreed to go but I did. I knocked at her door 20 minutes later and there was no time for thinking. She opened the door dressed in a grey cable knit sweater and black yoga pants. Her hair was down and sparkled silver in the soft light. The television was on in the background on mute and before I could even say anything she enveloped me in a hug and cried. Her head rested on my shoulder and the door barely closed. We stood like that for a few minutes, but it wasn’t awkward, it simply was comforting. She was comforted by the fact that another human being cared, that someone would come without any need, or purpose to hold her tight and tell her that, no it wasn’t going to be okay but time would heal.  
“What happened?” I said after she had stopped crying and I had poured us two glasses of wine.  
“Car accident, he was driving home,” she whispered and small tears rolled down.  
“You never talk about him,” I say to understand the relationship better.  
“I hadn’t talked to him in a few months, but he was my only connection home. After I got married and left home my father refused to talk to me. He could not fathom that I had been pregnant before marriage, that I had refused to follow the family business I was quite the disappointment.”  
“You’ve never told me,” I say softly, “did you tell the girls?”  
She smiled sadly, “I never told anyone before, and the girls know but they are away at camp. They barely knew him.”  
“I am so sorry,” I said words escaping me.  
“Thank you.”  
“Miranda, I know nothing I say will comfort you.”  
“I don’t want you to, you’re here and that’s all that matters. If I wanted to hear comforting words I could have called anyone else. I just wanted someone who’d sit with me in the dark and be my friend”  
“I can be that,” I say and we sit silently in the semi darkness of the parlor room, sipping the red wine swirling in high priced glasses.  
“I know,” she said after some time, scooting over to the middle of the sofa extending her legs out onto the floor and hanging her head on the back pillow. She reached over and turned the lights off, I put my head on her shoulder and grabbed her hand, just like I used to do to my mother when I was little. It was the simplest form of solidarity.  
“Will you stay the night?” she asked.  
I nodded and we simply sat there, she told me stories of her brother growing up. How he stole her bike and sold it to a friend. How proud she was when he went to the same university as her.  
“He was smarted than me,” she chuckled  
“I doubt it.”  
“No he was and more good looking,” she said again.  
“Again I doubt it, you are gorgeous,” and I don’t know why I said that but it silenced us both.  
When the day began to break she had fallen asleep with her head on my lap.  
I stirred and she woke up startled. “Oh my god I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to fall asleep!”  
“Don’t’ be sorry, I called work and told them I’m not going. Let’s get you to bed you have to get some rest before going home.”  
She stood up and looked at me. “I’m not going.”  
“You have to.”  
“I can’t when dad died, I went and my mother wouldn’t even talk to me, she said that I was the cause of his heart attack and it was …” the tears drowned out her voice.  
“But this is different, you loved him, he would want you to go,” I say because it sounds good, but I’m not sure if he would have.  
“I can’t go. It’s too painful. At least last time her was there to support me. Now I’d be alone with my mother.”  
“I’ll go with you,” I blurt out , “Oh my God I totally didn’t’ meant that … that I could even go … or replace your brother in any way… I mean I don’t know if you thought that… I did mean it it’s not like I’m backing out but that was too out there…. I mean I didn’t want to intrude… “  
She hand not stopped looking … “okay.”  
It was soft and if I had rambled louder I would have missed it “Okay?’  
“Come with me,” she whispers in her usual Miranda Priestly voice. It is the same tone she uses to tell us that we must go find 30 vintage Hermes scarfs, or flag down the hottest designer before he catches his flight in ten minutes from La Guardia, the impossible tone.  
“Home right? With your mother? Like in Maine?”  
Again she smiled and nodded, “Yes in Maine, and don’t use ‘like’ so much it sounds tacky and unintelligent.”  
“Thank,” she whispers again, this time even softer than before. I have figured out the reason why she talks so soft is because she knows everyone is listening, they are hanging to her every word.  
“for what?” I ask.  
“For offering, for last night, for caring.”  
“You know I care,” I answer and she gives me a pensive smile.  
“I’m going to get some sleep,” she said getting up and extending out her hand to me.  
“Where are we going.”  
“To sleep,” she said sounding confused “unless you want to sleep in the uncomfortable sofa?”  
I laughed and we both fell asleep as soon as we laid down.  
Crying was exhausting it turns out and she woke up startled and still tired a few hours later.  
“We have to leave tomorrow morning” she told me as we ate dinner quietly and somberly.  
“Roy will drive you home, to pick up anything you need and bring you back so we can leave together,” she orders and I nod.

 

~ Years ago: Priestly State: Maine.

She wasn’t kidding when she had said her family had money, the family ‘home’ was a sprawling state, where there was a winding road to get to the driveway. It wasn’t a surprise coming from the most influential editors in print media.  
“Miss M!” one of the boys sitting by the garden said smiling running up to her.  
“Jona! It’s been a long time, you were a baby last time I came!”  
“I was not a baby,” he said laughing and then more somberly “We are terribly sorry for Ryan.”  
The familiarity with which the staff treats her is a stark contrast to Runway. Who was this woman, cradling a gardeners son? I can’t help but feel that I have missed a big part of who she is, that her Tom Ford sunglasses and her signature hair, her Prada heels and her Chanel bag have somehow obscured her personality? Or maybe it was the city, the snobbish neighborhoods where people fought to be better than their neighbor? Maybe it was the irony of love and failed marriages?  
I run down the list as she asks after the boy’s father and mother and takes out candy from her purse to give him.  
I come to the conclusion that perhaps it’s the unbalanced pressure but on women in the corporate world, the way in which they have to fight twice as hard, do more, be better. The way in which they are judged by accomplishment and not potential as their male counterparts. The way in which they are expected to give up motherhood, to be ruthless, uncaring and do it all while wearing heels and looking like a sex symbol.  
“Where is mother?” she finally asks and I turn to look at the boy.  
“Mrs. Priestly is in the foyer with the other guests.”  
“Thank you sunshine,” she said patting the boy on the head.  
“who was that?”  
“his father has been our gardener since I can remember. “  
“wow”  
“Mi-and-da” an older woman said getting up from a porch rocking chair.  
“I thought you’d be inside mother,” came the defensive reply.  
“I was waiting for you, I can’t believer you came. How dare you?”  
“I came to see my bother, please let everything else rest.”  
“Who is this?” she said suddenly turning to me. I could not even speak there was something strong and piercing about this woman. I guess I could see it now in Miranda but softer and smoothed out. This lady, her mother was strong and without a need to filter what she though. Money and power had a tendency to do that.  
“This is my good friend Andrea.”  
“Andrea, I apologize for the welcome.”  
“No apology required, I apologize for invading a family affair,” I say being honest.  
Her mother seemed satisfied with my response extended out her hand to shake mine and nodded.  
“there are refreshment in the kitchen. Mass will be in the chapel in an hour if you’d like to join.”  
“Wow, you made quite the impression on my mother,” Miranda said as we sat down in the now deserted kitchen hours after everyone had left. The service had been simple, mass in a family chapel and burial in a nearby cemetery.  
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen her be more polite to any of my friends.” We sat down with a bottle of wine, “you know she never liked any of my friends.”  
“She said they were promiscuous,” Miranda laughs whole heartedly.  
“I guess that’s how I got pregnant,”  
“I think we should go to bed,” realizing we are still in the kitchen and she’s inebriated. It really isn’t like Miranda to drink too much. I’ve only seen her consume too much twice, the same two times I visited her home. This time I won’t say a thing, the situation calls for it.  
“You think I’m drunk… but I’m not… not really” she said grasping the bottle to pour the last of it.  
“Let’s go to bed.”  
“You know? I don’t think I like you telling me what to do? Or maybe I do?”  
Her bedroom was bigger than my whole apartment with a reading nook and a tea room.  
“stay with me?” she asked again “I promise this is the last night I ask.”  
I nodded. “ask away” I laughed and fell asleep to the soft wind in the window.

Present: Maine

“Remember the first time you came home with me?” she asked as we sat on the front porch of her parent’s state.  
I nodded “Of course, it was the first time I got to know the real you.”  
“I’m pretty sure I loved you then,” she confesses and I’m not sure how I could not see it back then. How it didn’t occur to me that this larger than life icon, this legend of fashion, the unapproachable Dragon Lady was breaking every rule for me.  
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”  
“I had never dated a girl, it wasn’t’ something I though I’d do. I kept telling myself that it was just friendship.”  
“What do we tell ourselves now?”  
She shrugs “I’m not sure darling.”  
“I missed the way you called me darling,” I say because I did. It was the exact same way she pronounced my name, broken down in three syllables, with a flair of an accent and a coating of velvet.  
“I miss everything about us, back then.”  
“We can make it work,” I insist.  
“We don’t have to. I’ll always love you,” she says and again those words reminds me how much she has changed for me. Miranda Priestly never lets anyone decide her life, she never gives options or ways out. She only does it for me, and I don’t understand why.  
“but I want to. I can’t live without you.”  
She’s about to say something, I know it, but her mother comes out with little Andrea in tow and announces “dinner’s ready.”  
“I though we should dine out in the gardens, the summer is so beautiful. I had donna set it out there.”  
“Sounds great Margaret” I answer and the baby jumps up at me, “mommy I already ate!!”  
“you did?” Miranda asks playfully, “I ate hot dogs grandma made them, mom.”  
I love seeing Miranda be a mother to a toddler. It love watching her here in her home state, in her designer jeans and cashmere cardigans, I love watching her features soften and her eyes sparkle.  
“Good, so what do you do now baby?” she asks.  
“I’m having Donna put her down for a nap,” Margaret answers.  
“noooo” she cries her eyes holding back tears, “I want to stay with mommy !!!” she sais and holds down to my neck. I glance over at Miranda, what was it we were saying about not making it work? I ask myself in silence.  
“I’ll be up soon darling and after your nap we will watch a movie oaky?”  
She nods defeated and accepts the pass over to Donna’s outstretched arms.  
“What will she do when you leave?” Miranda asks as we sit down.  
“You’re leaving?” Margaret asks alarmed. This was the ‘I told you part’.  
I look away, “I have business stuff to fix out in California.”  
“How long with you be away?” her glare fixes at me, she’s trying to determine if I am about to break her daughters heart again.  
“ I’m not sure,” I say silently.  
“Mom, she was just here visiting,” Miranda clarifies.  
“It’s been six months since you two got back, you’ve been back and forth at least four of those, I don’t understand why now you have a vague explanation Andrea?”  
“We’re not sure this will work,” Miranda blurts out and I’m sure Margaret is has a hit man on speed dial.  
“I think we’re going to need that wine,” she sais to herself and walks up to the table nearby and grabs one of the bottles displayed out.  
“Mom, let’s not talk about this right now,” Miranda pleads.  
“why are you so quiet?” she turns to me.  
“ I was just remembering the day I came to Ryan’s funeral,” I say without thinking.  
“I knew then, I knew you were a different friend. The way Miranda looked at you,” Margaret explains.  
We both stayed quiet, “Fine I won’t talk about it if that’s what you want. But you guys are wasting time… again….”  
We stared at out salad.  
“I say Fiona last week at the club,” Margaret starts, “she’s gained so much weight… and guess what she told me?”  
“I don’t know mom, what?” ….


	7. A HAPPY EVER AFTER

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the ending ~

Present: Portland International Maine

Neither of us are sure why I’m going home, nothing is drastically calling me back. She drops me of at the airport without a word, she holds my hand the whole way to the gate and even as we sit and have a cup of coffee.  
“I called my mother yesterday,” I say she nods.  
“I told her we are back together.”  
There is surprise in her eyes, yet she says nothing.  
“I will talk to her in person tomorrow of course but it is what it is.”  
“What did she say?’  
“nothing surprisingly,”  
“wow,” she deadpans.  
“I know,” I breathe in.  
There is sparkle in her eyes and I notice her looking at my hand  
“You’re wearing it” she states veering of topic looking at the ring that sparkles with the same intensity as it did back in the famous store.  
“One of the things you asked me was to tell my family, and I’ve already adopted Andrea officially, now we just need the third request.”  
“We have to call her something else, I’m going to be confused,” she jokes not answering my question.  
“We’ll think about it, if you think about the third request.”  
“Don’t” she waves her hand signaling for me to stop.  
“mmm” I say hurt washing over my face. I take a drink trying to disguise it.  
“Was it worth it ?” she asks and I’m not sure what we’re talking about now.  
“Was what worth it?”  
“Her, who you left me for?”  
I open my mouth and close it, I do it again. I am surprised. We had never talked about the true reason why I left before the wedding. She had never mentioned it, not in any of her messages back then, not when she went to Los Angeles, not in the months we had been back. It was the elephant in the room, that I had forgotten about. I have no idea what to say.  
“Was Mademoiselle Berger worth it? Breaking my heart?”  
“ You knew?” is the best I can come up with.  
“Of course I knew,” she whispers, “everyone fuckign knew, you cavorted all over Paris with her,” she stops tears stroll down. She’s fighting to not care, to be the stoic Miranda who never shows emotion. She’s fighting to be as grey as her Dior sweater dress and the matching coat that frames it.  
“I’m sorry,” I say.  
“You’re sorry? What did you think I felt every time someone looked at me and knew that the person I gave my heart to, the one special one who I let my walls down for had left me for someone else, what did you think I feel knowing that instead of marrying me you left with me with an adoption process started? How do you think I felt knowing that you put your hight morals and not wanting to take my money and then seeing you with miss magnate there? You were you supposed to be different, you were the one." “You never said anything? When I came back?" I ask.  
“And the one after her and all the glamour to get where you are? ” is that why you did it? Was it really better than taking my money? Was it better than settling down? Was I that boring?”  
I take a deep breath, we had never talked about it.  
“It wasn’t that,” I say and stop.  
“Then what was it?”  
“I don’t know Miranda. I could not tell you. I never stopped loving you. I was running away, I was deadly afraid of belonging with you. I hadn’t even told my family that we were getting married.”  
“It doesn’t matter now,” she waves her hand again.  
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” she finishes.  
“I don’t know, I messed up,”  
She shrugs  
“So is this it?” I ask tentatively.  
“No… I don’t know,” she whispers.  
“Are you leaving me?” I say a sad smile.  
“You’re the one that’s getting on a plane.”  
“She was alluring,” I say “She was new, and young and eccentric. She wanted to do everything you had already done, she was like a brand new toy.”  
Her face blanks, I know it hurt. The truth does that sometimes.  
“And the others?” she asks.  
“They didn’t mean a thing. I know it would never appeal as an excuse but they didn’t. I was hoping to find what I felt with you in them. But no one was you. No one had your blue eyes, or your laugh, or our memories. I love you Miranda, only you, I loved you since Runway and I will always love you.”  
She nods. “It’s time for you to leave.”  
I know she means for my plane, but it really isn’t time yet. I get up anyway because I know her well enough to know she means the conversation has ended.  
I lean in to give her a gentle kiss, which she accepts.  
“Ill call you when I land,” I say and hold her hand depositing in it the ring she had given me five years ago.  
She doesn’t say a thing back.

I do call her when I land. She answers.  
“the baby wanted to say hello but she fell asleep, she misses you.”  
“I miss her already,” I coo.  
“You had a good flight?’’  
“yeah pleasant enough, not looking forward to work tomorrow,” I laugh.  
“you work all day here,” she offers.  
“Of my laptop in the garden not in a office” I clarify.  
“true”  
“Well I have to grab some sleep.”  
“Okay,” she says and there is an awkward silence.  
“I’m sorry”  
“I know,” she says quietly but doesn’t accept the apology.  
“It’s not enough is it?” I say and I am so afraid for her answer.  
“Probably not.” She spills out.  
“Okay,”  
“I miss you” she whispers and hangs up the phone.  
I call her everyday for a week, she doesn’t answer. I think about flying to her but what if she doesn’t want to see me.  
Finally on the weekend she answers me, “I was super busy” she says  
“avoiding me?”  
“yes,” she answers honestly and it’s good to know at least we still have that.  
“work has been good, we are planning the annual convention,” I explain.  
“Good”  
“it will be in Nashville this year,”  
“How fun, can I come?” she jokes.  
“Miranda?”  
“Mmmm”  
“Do you remember when we went to Hawaii?”  
“Of course”

******* 

~Years ago : Molokai, Hawaii.  
“We have to leave the suite,” she murmurs as I pressed soft kisses to her side, her bare mid drift.  
“mm the ocean will always be there,” I say.  
“but we won’t always be here,” she explains.  
“Tell me you love me” I say out of the blue.  
“You know I do. I love you. I will always love you. I will love you until I die”  
“Why” I say sitting up in bed.  
“Because I do,” she’s annoyed, she doesn’t like interruptions.  
“you have to have a reason.”  
“I don’t. I just do. You were just the one for me. We were meant to be,” she explains hastily.  
“How do you know. I mean we are not conventional. I am just an ex employee, that gave you a birthday card.”  
“I don’t know Andrea. I just love you. You are funny, and beautiful, and witty, and smart, you have the greatest brown eyes, and you are sweet. I just fell in love with you, with our friendship, with the way you make me feel, and understand me. With the way you’ve changed me without trying. I just never knew I could love like this. Like I could forgive you anything.”  
“But you won’t,” I say.  
“I don’t know. I don’t want to find out?,” she thinks for a moment, “Do you love me?”  
“More than anything. I love your hair, and your eyes, and your long talks about work, I love your story, and your dreams, I love your hands over me. I love the paleness of your skin, everything about you.”  
I lean in to kiss her, it’s just like every other kiss we share … different. We convey in it all the emotions we feel. “Let’s go to that snorkeling session,” I whisper.  
“okay let’s do it.”  
The waters are crystal blue just like everyone always said they would be. there are fishes from all colors, that I have never seen. And it would be cliché to say all I saw was her. The way her hair moved in the water like silk on marble. It was a memory I would never forget.

“I love you,” she said over tikki torched dinner.  
“what if I cheated on you one day?” I’m not sure where the question came from. I guess the universe knew back then.  
“Why would you say that?” she asks over an elegant island dress in black and pale yellow.  
“I don’t know, I’ve though about so many things on this trip. I thought about what if you left me. What if I did. What if you fell for someone else.”  
“If you loved that other person I’d be heartbroken but I’d let you go and I’d wish you all the happiness in the world. If you didn’t love her or him” … she laughs… “I’d be torn between being heartbroken or forgiving you. I guess I’d ask why?”  
“and if I didn’t have a why? If I was just young and dumb?”  
“I don’t know Andrea, I don’t want to talk about what ifs,” she looks away sipping her drink.  
“Would you stop loving me?”  
She shakes her head and smiles “I don’t’ think I could.

 

~Present: Phone conversation.

We’re both silent at the memory at how naïve we were and how uncanny the situation seems.  
“ I booked a trip to Hawaii,” I say  
“Oh wow,” she whispers.  
“I haven’t been there since that day,” I continue.  
“who are you going with?”  
“You,” I say hopefully.  
“Oh”  
“It’s next week.”  
“Oh wow.”  
“Will you come?”  
There is an uncanny silence that seems to last for an eternity.  
I can hear the quiet of her breathing and even though I know better, even though I know that I should not speak I do,  
“ill send you the reservation.”  
“Send it to Anne” she says referring to her newest assistant and I’m not sure if she’s saying okay to me sending her the reservation or okay to her coming.  
She senses the situation.  
“One condition,” her words make me smile even though she can’t see me.  
“Any,” I say unsure of what she is talking about and suddenly feeling tired  
“I have one condition to go,” she repeats.  
“We’re not getting separate rooms,” I say half joking.  
She laughs, “I wasn’t’ going to suggest that.”  
“Good.”  
“The condition is we take the baby.”  
“nothing would make it better,” I say.  
I feel a certain hesitation on the other line, I want to tell her I need to sleep but I can’t.  
“I want it to be a family vacation, we’ll take her to Disney aluani and we’ll go sit on the beach.”  
I nod even though no one is looking.  
“I love you,” I say but she doesn’t say it back, it’s too soon.  
“I know.” 

 

I meet her at the LAX airport where we agreed to have her connect so we would arrive together in Hawaii.  
“Mommy mommy!” Andy runs out of Caroline’s hands and into my arms.  
“I think she loves you more,” Miranda suggests.  
“No way, I’m just funner huh?”  
“No way, you can’t be funner than an older sister,” Caroline interjects and reaches out to hug me.  
“Where is Cass?” I ask.  
“London, stuck at work,” Caroline informs me.  
Miranda rolls her eyes and leans in for a hug.  
“So,” she starts  
“The answer is yes,” I say.  
“To what?”  
“when you’re ready to ask the answer is yes,” I say  
“Okay?” she laughs.  
We walk a few halls down to our gate.  
“Andrea?” she says and the tone sounds serious.  
“why did you give me the ring back?”  
“I … it seemed like the right thing to do.”  
She nods.  
The rest of the flight is a quiet one, I take a sleeping pill and Andy falls asleep on Caroline’s lap.  
When we arrive at the hotel there is a separate connected suite for her and a day care.  
“Dinner?”  
I nod, “ I told you the answer would always be yes.”  
She laughs again, “I’m not asking again.”  
“Will your answer be yes to?” I ask and we know that we are talking about marriage.  
“Yes I do want dinner,” she says and I nod.  
“Good I hear fish is divine.”  
I walk over to the door and as she grabs her clutch I say “will you marry me?”  
She nods as if it was the most normal question in the world and leans in for a kiss, “yes, but you may never leave again, or cheat on me, or lie to me.”  
“Will you marry me here?” I say  
She nods, “I think so, it’s been a long time.”

I knew she’d say yes, just as I always knew ever since that moment when I lay on her bed in a hotel suite, missing a work conference. Ever since I confessed how the deepest of my thoughts without a drop of concern and all I was met with was a quiet I love you. I knew she was the one. I knew that true love did exist. Ever since I blurted out that I loved her, in a cheap bar while I was high on cocaine and she rescued me from that night. I knew it the moment I left her, and everyday after. If I ever believed in destiny it was with her, I knew that at the end of the day whatever we may say we’d end up together we were like fire and moth. I was drawn to her since the moment at the interview. I was drawn to her as a friend, as a colleague, as the love of my life.

We booked the hotel chapel the next day. If you could call it a chapel. More of an open air canvas overlooking the beach. The most perfect setting, for the most unexpected couple.  
“I called your mother,” I said.  
“I know.”  
“She called you?”  
Miranda shakes her head, soft loose curls shake with her.  
“how do you know?”  
“I just know,” she sais and pushes me softly against the hotel door, it’s oppressive the pressure of her toned body against mine. Her lips pry mine open and I know the red of her shade has to be on me now. It’s highly provocative, I instantly draw my hands to her lower back and she moans into my embrace.  
I want to say so many things but I just can’t think.  
I simply let her unbutton my blouse and push her hand upon my jeans. It takes a moment until she drags me to the bed and pushes.  
I laugh, “I like this side of you.”  
“You know what I like?” she asks.  
I shake my head.  
“I like you,” she whispers into my ear and her lips trace my skin like paper  
I really can’t think of a single think to say except that I love her  
Words that get lost as she reaches past my navel into my thighs and I can only murmur her name.  
She’s still dresses which seems unfair so I twist her over and pin her to the bed.  
She wriggles under me and for a moment my breath hitches on the blue of her eyes and the deepness of them.  
“You are so beautiful” I say breathless, “you’ve always been.”  
“stop it” she sais.  
“I mean it, I … you leave me breathless and I can’t believe you love me back.”  
She laughs a pure deep laugh and when I think she’s going to say something important she says “just fuck me.”  
Which I do willingly, all night.  
When I wake up she’s not next to me and I feel for a second scared until I realize that we have to get over that. So I take a deep breath and take a shower. When I come out she’s still not there, and even though her suitcase is there I know loosing a few pieces of clothing is nothing.  
Right when I’m about to go to the baby’s room she bursts in with a few paper bags and says … “omg I had to rent a jeep to find blue roses … but I did and now I just have to find a dress.”  
“wow,” I say laughing.  
“are you okay?” she asks confused.  
“yeah, I just didn’t think about the roses … why blue?”  
“well… not blue, cerulean,” as she finishes she arches her eyebrow and I laugh.  
“We have two more days,” I say.  
“I know but mom arrives tonight and then your dad arrives tomorrow morning and I also have Gina, Jennifer and her husband, Monique and two of my cousins coming. And I rented the club cabana for after the ceremony and before you say anything mom will take Andy and we are going to Europe.”  
I simply gasp.  
She looks confused… “are you still okay? I mean you still want to marry me… right?” her words slow down as she finishes.  
I nod frantically because I can’t get my words out as I pour myself whiskey from the bottle or scotch I’m not sure what it was.  
“More than anything. I just had a moment of shock,” I laugh.  
“My father is coming? And Jennifer? And I have to go back to work before the convention.”  
She sits down next to where I’m standing and shakes her head.  
“Are you hungry? Should I order room service before we go dress shopping or should we go out?”  
“Room service I guess.”  
“Great, Um so let me break it down. I called Jennifer because a girl should always have her best friend to get married. And she called your parents your dad said he would not miss your wedding for the world. Your mother of course … well she’s not coming. And then mom called Gina and she suggested the whole honey moon thing. You don’t need to go to work before conference I can’t … You don’t need to even work and yes I know you love it but you have to give me this. I … “ she stops.  
“I know,” I say knowing that she’s going to say work kept us apart last time, well mostly my ambition and that I owed it to her.  
“I’ve been planning this wedding,”  
“I know…” I cut her short, “and I also have something to tell you, that I was going to tell you after the wedding but I guess now is a good time.’  
“If your pregnant I wont marry you, you’ll look fat in the pictures,” she says and I know she’s joking.  
“Well I don’t think we’d know from last night quiet yet,” I joke back.  
She laughs and barks at the phone that we want two coffees with and a few bagels.  
“I sold the firm, that is an announcement in Nashville, I will still have a board seat, but I won’t be a name partner and I will work out of the east coast. And I want to spend as much time as I can with you. I … you are the love of my life.”  
Whatever she was going to say how I owed it to her died on her lips and she smiled.  
“I have always known,” she starts but the baby burst into the side door and the lady who takes care of her trails apologizing,  
“she opened the door, sorry.”  
We laugh and shake our heads “I think she needs a sister to play with,” Caroline burst in after her with a bag of toys.  
Words that Miranda seems to agree with “I think so.”

 

Two days later: 

“I promise,” she says to the wind in our intimate ceremony.  
“I promise to love you for as long as I live and into the darkness of eternity. I promise to fill our life with memories, hope and laughter. I promise that you will be my best friend forever, my life partner, my companion, the one I was meant for.”  
“And I promise,” I answer looking at her dressed in a long off white dress, it’s the simplest silk dress you can imagine, soft and blowing in the wind.  
“I also promise to love you for as long as live for I could do nothing else. The rhythm of my heart beats for you, I only see my future with you. And I promise that I will love and respect you all the days I live.”  
Her mother is the first one to cheer and we simply laugh.  
It seems like it has taken an eternity. It has. It has been a long 10 years but we made it. The party is a smashing success.


End file.
